Shannon Nichols Proficiency Analysis

Shannon Nichols “Proficiency”, describes her own struggle in taking a proficiency test that’s given by her high school. This specific test is considered a college based test that requires a passing score to be able to graduate high school. Shannon takes the test two time her ninth-grade year and one time her twelfth-grade year. She fails the first two attempts which makes her very uneasy and disappointed. Luckily, she passed the twelfth-year test but the psychological damage had already been done. She begins to doubt herself and her ability to write which puts the idea of deterrents in education in the readers mind. When people set themselves on a path towards education, there may be obstacles that seem unattainable. Unfortunately, depending on the mind of the individual, failing tests, low self-esteem, losing hope, and the loss of satisfaction while writing can become deterrents to attaining an education. Shannon Nichols was a very confident girl that believed her writing was amazing until she took a writing proficiency test. Before reviewing her test scores, Nichols believed she passed every part to the complete test (math, English, writing,
Nichols took a test two times and failed both. After failing the first test, Shannon decides to not give up and continues to study and excel in her high school English/writing class. After the second attempt Nichols loses all hope and began to not care about her writing or English class in general. These multiple failures affected her mind set so she then started thinking of herself as a disappointment. She then slowly began to give up on everything. After taking her twelfth-grade test, Nichols started to wonder what she did wrong and why there wasn’t any help in correcting her mistakes. Given all of Nichols information, the idea of obstacles being deterrents for education has very strong supporting examples within her specific